So, RadCon was kinda fun. Would have been more fun if a few things hadn’t happened, but more on that later.
Played some Battlefield 2. Played some Battletech. Played some Full Thrust. Went to a Heather Alexander concert. Caught up with some people I hadn’t seen in a while. All very good.
Transportation was a mess. One car, two drivers, three people with conflicting demands. Got it mostly worked out but it cost me a lot of Con time, and more gas than it needed to. I hate not having a car.
Taking Alison to Cons is generally a mistake, but if I don’t take her, I don’t end up going. She treats a Con like it’s a date, and we have to go everywhere and do everything together, which would be fine if we both wanted to do the same things, but we rarely do. To make it worse, she can’t seem to keep a schedule. It’s not all her fault, but it is annoying. Naturally, when I go to a Con, I like to hit every gaming block. As long as the gaming room is open, I want to be involved in something. Of course, this means staying up late and getting up early. Unfortunately, since I’m her only means of transportation, I have to stop whatever I’m doing to get her to the Con whenever the hell she feels like waking up. Makes me wish I could afford a hotel room. :P
But there were more problems this year. As I mentioned, Alison’s Asthma or Allergy or Whatever the Hell It Is to cigarette smoke has been getting worse for some time now. Last year we managed with only a minor incident (she passed out in the art room, as it was “a little stuffy.” We took her home and she was fine) and the previous year had been entirely without incident. This year we figured that, with the new anti-smoking laws, we’d have less trouble. Smoke has real trouble travelling 25′, going through a hotel airlock, and infiltrating itself into a building.
Of course, the smokers ignored the law and were allowed to get away with it. As is their habit, and as I should have anticipated, they insisted on standing right outside the door while they smoked. The airlocks had varying degrees of effect, but along about Saturday night when we were trying to go home, the lobby smelled about like a pre-901 bar. Alison, of course, had an attack. She survived, but she doesn’t seem to happy about it. Chest pains, swollen throat, whole nine yards. Had an emergency room check her out, and they gave her a clean bill of health and a prescription for an inhaler (which should help.) Hopefully we can get her to a doctor soon, but I don’t think I’ll be going back to RadCon in the forseeable future.
Which is really sad. RadCon has been one of the few stable things in my life for the past several years. In a way, I had grown to depend on it. Giving it up will be…difficult.